BeSummers
Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.
MBunge
Cruel Game should really be title Cruel Trick, because that's what gets played on you if you rent this DVD. This is one of those R-rated films you see sitting on the video store shelf that you expect won't be very good but you do expect it'll have some gratuitous nudity, violence and coarse language and that's sometimes what you're in the mood for. Well, with this movie you'd be half right. It does suck something fierce. It also has no violence, practically no profanity and the nudity is basically limited to a couple of seconds of side boob action and the top half of a butt crack.Brad Wright (Adam Baratta) is a womanizer who has trust issues. How do you know he has trust issues? Because the movie opens with a therapy session where his therapist (Jennifer Rubin) not only says to Brad "You have trust issues" but you're shown the therapist's note pad where the phrase "trust issues" has been written under Brad's name. And yeah, that right there pretty much typifies how bad this movie is.Anyway, the story begins with Brad chastely dating a Japanese girl named Yuki (Jennifer Tung) while also sleeping with a young married woman (Bonnie-Jill Laflin) and banging Yuki's red-headed roommate Jenny (Carrie Stevens). Yuki is desperately in love with Brad; mooning over him, giving him gifts and acting like a doormat. Brad finds this pathetic behavior irresistible and falls in love with Yuki. This turns Jenny into an irrationally jealous bitch who sets Brad up with a smokin' hot blonde (Victoria Silvstedt) for a one-night stand. Apparently, Jenny can't stand the thought of Brad being with the somewhat plain Yuki but has no trouble with him screwing much more attractive women. Jenny also tells Brad that Yuki is cheating on him with this swimming pool douchebag at Yuki's apartment and suggests a scheme where Brad can test Yuki's love. That leads to a scam so idiotic it wouldn't fool a chipmunk and ends up proving that writer/director Masashi Nagadoi can neither write nor direct. All he can do is imitate things he's seen in other movies, TV shows and even car commercials, stringing together a series of scenes that not only don't make sense but completely contradict each other.The only good thing about Cruel Game is that Victoria Silvstedt and Carrie Stevens are both extremely attractive. Unfortunately, Silvstedt remains fully clothed and Stevens only gets partially naked for a grand total of about 13 seconds. Beyond that, this film is a steaming pile of dung. The story doesn't make any logical or emotional sense. The dialog sounds like it was written by a deaf and blind person trying to imagine how others talk. The soundtrack is dominated by this monotonous soft jazz that'll make you want stick your head in a hill of fire ants until they eat away your eardrums. Writer/director Nagadoi is so inept the only way he knows how to segue from one scene to another is to show Brad driving around in his car. I'm not kidding. There will be a scene with Brad and his therapist, then a shot of Brad driving; a scene of Brad and Jenny, a shot of Brad driving; a scene where Brad isn't even in it, a shot of Brad driving. If this wasn't a case of product placement, I'd guess that Nagadoi has some weird automobile fetish.As for the acting…Silvstedt and Stevens would make passable soap opera vixens and Mako is just Mako. The rest of the cast is useless. To paraphrase Dr. Evil, Adam Baratta is the Diet Coke of Ben Affleck-wannabes - Just one calorie, not quite Ben Affleck enough. Writer/director Nagadoi was also not content demonstrating he can neither write nor direct. He cast himself as the spastic Japanese temp worker at Brad's advertising firm and gives a performance that is equal parts dismal, annoying and racially inappropriate.Cruel Game is so awful it doesn't even qualify as a actual film. It's more like a test of IQ and aesthetic sensibility. If you think this movie is smart, that means you're dumb. If you think it's good, that means you have no taste. So, you might want to show Cruel Game to your fiancée to find out if you should call off the wedding. Other than that, you'd be better off using this DVD as a coaster.
TheVid
This is one of those nondescript, late-night cable entries generally referred to as erotic thrillers. This one's rather boring at only 84 minutes; and it's too softcore and humorless to be as engaging as some. The bimbos are all very attractive, should that be your sole criteria for indulging.
